The field of this disclosure is virtual systems and more specifically virtual methods and systems that create visual conditions intended and designed to positively affect mental states in work place environments.
Hereinafter, unless indicated otherwise and in order to simplify this explanation, the term “enterprise” will be used to refer to an entity that provides spaces that include affordances for people to use to perform various tasks and, for example, may include a large or small corporation that employs people in various business endeavors. In addition, the term “employee” will be used to refer to any person that uses an enterprise space or facility including a person that is actually employed by an enterprise, a contractor that works indirectly for the enterprise, a visitor in an enterprise facility, etc.
For many employees, work, family and other demands are difficult to balance and, at times, can feel overwhelming. For this reason, most people strive to use their time effectively and therefore endeavor to be highly focused on what they are trying to accomplish at any specific time. For instance, when people work, they want to work efficiently and effectively to get some job done (e.g., create work product, evaluate a topic, participate in a conference). As another instance, when people relax, they want to completely relax so that they can rejuvenate themselves as quickly as possible. As still one other instance, when people play, many people like to push themselves to their physical or mental limit as a personal challenge or as an efficient use of the limited amount of time allotted by many people to these important activities. In addition to using time effectively, most people attempt to strike some type of balance between the demands put on their time so that they can maintain their sense of well being.
How well a person works, relaxes and plays is directly related to her mind state (i.e., state of mind). Humans have evolved over millions of years to be sensory beings and to this day a person's seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting senses continue to have overwhelming effects on a person's mind state. For this reason, what a person senses often times directly effects the degree to which that person can mentally engage in an immediate activity. For instance, if a person sees coworkers passing by while trying to relax during a break, her time relaxing is typically less effective as her mind wanders about contemplating encountered coworkers. If another person is thinking about how cold he is while participating in a yoga class, his discomfort diminishes the physical and psychological effect of the time spent in class. If yet another person is trying to draft a white paper on some aspect of nuclear physics at a workstation located near a hallway between conference rooms and is constantly hearing people as they travel between meetings through the hallway, the audible distractions will disrupt his focus and hence the efficiency and effectiveness of his time spent drafting the paper.
In addition to our immediately sensed environment, one other factor that often affects a person's instantaneous mind state is temporally preceding mind states. For instance, if a person participating in an afternoon meeting with colleagues is thinking about conclusions drawn from an immediately preceding meeting, thoughts about the prior conclusions often unintentionally affect her effectiveness and efficiency in the current meeting. As another example, if a person routinely drives through a highly congested area when travelling from work to home each night, the person's mind state upon arriving home may be substantially affected by the stress of making her nightly commute. As still one other example, a person that has an extremely stressful day at the office may find it difficult to fully participate in a pickup basketball game at a local gym after work as the day's activities continue to cycle through the person's mind.
Recognizing the importance of environment on mind state and hence use of time, for thousands of years people have tried to optimize their environments in ways designed to control their mind states and therefore to promote or optimally facilitate different activities at different times. Perhaps the best example of how most people control environment to optimize a specific activity centers around sleep. While the best sleeping environment for one person may differ in some ways from the best environment for another, most people, over time, determine the best sleeping conditions for themselves and then construct an environment that provides those conditions when sleep is sought. For instance, a first person may sleep best in a quiet, temperate, dry and dark space that includes a comfortable bed surface. Recognizing this, the first person would typically create a sleeping space that is quiet, dry, temperate and dark and that includes a suitable bed structure. As another example, most yoga class participants can achieve desired poses best in a warm or even hot environment and therefore, among other environmental conditions, yoga studios are often heated to optimize for yoga activities.
Recognizing the effect a mind state can have on a person's subsequent mind state, many individuals have adopted habits that allow them to rejuvenate between sequential activities so that they can, in effect, reset their minds to prepare for a next activity. For instance, in many cases a person may take a few minutes to rest and decompress after a stressful drive home from work prior to participating in some family activity. As another instance, some people may try to find a restful place between meetings at work where they can quiet their minds prior to a next scheduled meeting.
In addition to individuals trying to provide environments and adopt habits to control mind state, many employers have attempted to provide enterprise environments and cultures that do the same. Most efforts at controlling work environments to positively affect mind state have centered around eliminating sensory environmental stimuli when work tasks are to be performed. Here, the thought has been that if a sense is not stimulated, that sense cannot interfere with what an individual is thinking about and therefore the individual should be able to concentrate on an immediate work task more effectively. For instance, to reduce visual distractions, in many cases workstations and other personal spaces were developed that included visual barriers including walls and screens so that a space user's view outside the space was blocked and other employees outside the space could not be seen. To reduce audible distractions, wall and screen barriers were designed to deaden sound and, in at least some cases, white noise generating devices were developed to effectively block out meaningful noises from being perceived by space users. Distractions associated with physical discomfort or the sense of touch were limited or eliminated by providing highly adjustable task chairs, adjustable tables and monitor arms and other ergonomic interface affordances adjustable to fit any body and any specific user preferences.
Regarding the need to reset mind state between work activities, many enterprises have attempted to design enterprise buildings and campuses as well as employee work schedules in ways that recognize the importance of intermediate work day rejuvenation. For instance, most meetings of any duration are planned to have built in break periods to allow employees to use rest rooms, grab a beverage or a snack, or attend to personal needs. As another instance, many enterprises encourage employees to take some time between scheduled activities to rejuvenate in some fashion.
To help employees rejuvenate, many enterprises provide outdoor spaces or specially designed interior spaces that include affordances designed to support rejuvenation. For instance, many enterprise campuses include outdoor patios or decks with ponds, trees or other natural affordances between campus buildings. As another instance, many enterprises provide quiet spaces within buildings that include comfortable lounge chairs, dim lighting and perhaps even some type of calming or contemplative music.
Thus, in most cases, enterprise spaces designed to get work done have been separated from dedicated rejuvenation spaces and the two different space types have been designed to have very different affordance sets, one set that attempts to block sensory stimuli and the other set that stimulates the senses in ways that at least try to foster a tranquil mind state. While the intent behind providing differently afforded spaces to affect mind state and hence affect work efficiency and effectiveness is worthy, current solutions have several shortcomings.
First, while enterprises routinely provide separate spaces designed to facilitate employee rejuvenation, the very fact that the spaces are separate can have a negative impact on space utilization. To this end, most employees that already feel time crunched simply do not take the time to physically travel to some out of the way space to rejuvenate. In addition, despite attempts to change their cultures, in many enterprises where hard work and effort are highly valued, an employee may perceive that other employees will unfairly judge his dedication to the enterprise if he regularly travels to and uses a rejuvenation space.
Second, in many cases spaces that are provided for rejuvenation are not dedicated rejuvenation spaces and instead are provided to accomplish two or more enterprise goals at the same time which means that the spaces are not optimized for rejuvenation. For instance, “relaxing” spaces in an open office plan such as couch and lounge chair arrangements near an enterprise cafeteria are often provided both as a rejuvenation space and as an informal gathering space where employees can informally interact with each other between work activities. As another instance, an outdoor patio or deck space between enterprise buildings is often provided both as a rejuvenation space and as a way of opening up an internal space to “nature”.
One characteristic of nature is that it is uncontrolled and therefore mind state, including a relaxing state, can be easily distracted. For instance, if a squirrel scampers across a patio and up a tree, an employee on the patio can become easily distracted. As another instance, as clouds block and unblock sun from subtending the pages of a book being read by an employee on a patio, the employee can be distracted by the changing and uncontrolled environment. Thus, where a space is designed for two or more purposes at the same time, the ability of moist employees to rejuvenate within the space is substantially reduced.
Third, even where an enterprise provides interior work spaces dedicated to rejuvenation, in most cases, despite best intentions, because different employees have different rejuvenation space preferences, rejuvenation spaces simply have not been optimized for most employees. Perhaps the best way to think about preferred rejuvenation environments is to think about the varied locations that employees travel to when on vacation and how those employees relax when in their preferred vacation spots. Some employees like the beach, others the mountains and still others the desert. Some employees like vacations in natural settings while others prefer to be located in a city. Some employees like pure relaxation on vacation while others prefer trips designed for learning about a historical culture. Some employees want to read while on vacation while others simply want to unplug from any cognitive activities. Many times even a single employee will prefer different rejuvenating environments at different times. For instance, at one time an employee may want no sensory stimuli while relaxing and at a second time the same employee may want to read a novel on a beach with Chakra music quietly playing in the background. These varied rejuvenating environmental preferences have meant that known dedicated enterprise rejuvenation spaces cannot meet the needs of most employees.
Fourth, even where an employee periodically uses a regenerative space between meetings or focused individual work at a workstation, the quick transition from one to the other can have a jolting effect on an employee's mind state. Thus, for instance, moving from a stressful meeting to a rejuvenating activity in a dedicated space and then on to personal focused work at a workstation can psychologically whipsaw an employee from stress to relaxation and back into a stressful situation which can reap havoc on the employee's well being.
Fifth, there is at least some evidence that the workstation and conference space environments designed to eliminate or at least substantially reduce sensory stimuli during work activities is sub-optimal for work efficiency and effectiveness as well as for employee wellbeing. To this end, for instance, there is empirical evidence that peppermint and other scents have a focusing effect when perceived during work activities. As another instance, there is evidence that certain types of music (e.g., typically non-lyric, familiar, relatively quiet and generally steady; e.g., baroque, Chakra, etc.) or audio stimuli of certain types can have a focusing effect on employees during work. As still one other instance there is evidence that light, in particular natural light or a view of a window, may have a positive effect on employee wellbeing. Other sensory stimuli may also have an immediate effect on employee efficiency, effectiveness and overall wellbeing. Thus, while elimination of sensory stimuli during work activities is better than being bombarded with distracting stimuli, complete stimuli elimination often times goes too far and has an adverse impact on mind state and therefore overall employee effectiveness and efficiency.
Sixth, just as different employees prefer different environments while rejuvenating, employees have many different environmental preferences while performing work activities. For instance, while one person may work well in a sensory blocking workstation, another person may be able to perform at least some tasks best when on a beach, when located at the edge of a calm north woods lake, or when located near an exterior window. Known enterprise space affordances simply do not allow employees to create their preferred working environments and instead, in many cases, employees are located in sub-optimal sensory blocking workstations that have no resemblance to optimally afforded work spaces.
Thus, there is a need for personalized enterprise spaces that are better afforded to support both work and rejuvenation activities for employees. Ideally, affordances within the enterprise spaces would provide optimal settings for each employee or group of employees, based on personal preferences, to meet work, rejuvenation, wellbeing and other objectives. In addition, there is a need for spaces that can support groups of employees to foster specific mind states that are optimal for achieving different employment as well as other personally rewarding tasks.